Smoking and Talking


My Uncle doesn't smoke anymore, but some of our best conversations and some of his best stories were told with a cigarette and coffee.

The other day I was visiting and we were talking and reminiscing about what it was like when he first came to Canada. I reminded him of a few that I remembered, and he didn't...and he told me a new one.

It went like this:

"Bora an me, ve go feeshink, an ve drivink bek hom...an ve get laast.
Bora, he mek a u-toorn an da politz dey stap aas.

Da politz-man he say,
"Yu don see da sign say 'NO U-TURN'?
and Bora say to da politz, he say:

"No, you turn...bat me o.k.!"

Da politz-man he leff an leff..an ve look at each odde an tink...
mah...he crasy.


Bat den ve see da sign...an den ve leff too."

I love these stories.
There are so many of them that I forget until he tells them again, and they never get old for me.
I suppose that it's the way that he tells them, or that I love him so much that it doesn't matter how many times I hear them.

I don't know which, and I guess it doesn't matter.
So long as he's here to tell them.

Single Chicks Myths About Marriage


It's Just a Piece of Paper
Yes.
It's a piece of paper that carries a lot of weight; in society, at the bank, and in court.
I once heard an idiot over dinner say that the fact that he didn't marry the mother of his two children and stayed with her, proves that their relationship is stronger than a marriage.

Not really.

What it proves is that he can bullshit the woman he lives with into not bothering him about legitimizing his children and making a commitment to her and his children and making them a legal family.
It keeps his options open...and since he was exposed as living a double life right here in this house, when one of our other friends recognized him as the man his cousin was "engaged" to for the past three years...nuff said.
His common law wife said that it didn't matter to her that they weren't married, a devout Catholic.

I guess that's why she wore a wedding band anyway, huh?

Common Law is just like being married.
No.
It's not.
You can walk away from "common law" without a big "marriage law" hastle.
Oh sure, you can go to court, but your rights are not the same.
Just ask anyone who's done it.

Marriage will change him.

If you believe this, I'm the Queen of Romania.

If he was a controlling, cheating, gambling alcoholic, chances are that he'll still be that after the reception.


If I have a baby, he'll marry me...

Yeah.
Maybe he will, but if he didn't love you enough to marry you without the belly, it's a miserable life you're setting up for yourself and your child.
If he doesn't marry you, you're a statistic.
Way to set up a stable life for another human being you're bringing into the world.
A child is not a K-Tel product you can send back if you don't like it when it comes out of the box.
Ask any foster parent who has taken in children who ended up unwanted.

Why do I bring this up you ask?

It's because I'm tired of listening to young single women who malign marriage until someone proposes to them, then they start planning the wedding of the century.

It's the whole "I'll piss on it until I'm getting married", that irritates me.

Oh.
And while we're on the topic...
As mama told me:
"Iz aboud da life, nat aboud da day".

That's all.

PS.
Asshole hightailed it out of the party before the woman he proved he "loved more by not marrying" before she glommed onto anything fishy going on, and we haven't seen him since...since the cousins lived down the street from us...

Put The Carny Back in Carnival

Today, on my way home...I stopped by one of those roadside Carnivals.

You know the ones....
They set up rides and games temporarily somewhere for a week or two and then move on.

I noticed something very odd.
None of the Carnys (or is it Carnies?) had tatoos.

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?!

In this day and age where everyone from your whore to your hairdresser has a tatoo....what?....Carnies don't have them anymore?

Heed the signs people....

Carnies sported tatoos when it was an outlaw kind of thing to do.
Years ago, only certain kinds of people had tatoos.
Sailors, whores, bikers, biker chicks, circus folk.....and Carnies...

Carnies all over the place at this roadside attraction...not one tatoo.

All the Carnies in clean clothes, no smokin'...everyone had all their teeth...what the hell is this world coming to?

The times, they are-a-changin'.